Remember
by shdwanna
Summary: Some holiday rituals are bittersweet. Integra, alone on Christmas Eve.


Remember  
  
Integra settled at the small table in her sitting room, straightening the pile of heavy parchment and uncapping her fountain pen. "Charles Allen," she wrote. She took a moment to bring him to mind, curly red hair and freckles and all. He had collected. cricket pennants, that was it. There had been at least a dozen of them in his trunk. Not married, but his mother's name was Bridget. Like her, no father living. She wrote again. "Daniel Atkins." Dark-haired, with an absolutely wicked grin. A great favorite with the ladies, Private Atkins had been, and a raving fan of Liverpool's football team. "James Bradley." Blonde hair shaved almost off, mischievous blue eyes, and a tendency to quote Monty Python at odd moments.  
  
Halfway through the D's, she reached for her wine glass. This was a difficult task, had always been a difficult task. That was the point of it, after all. Each December 24th, she sat by the fire and listed each of the men under her command who would not see Christmas that year, remembering each of them. Her fault, that they were not spending this night with their families.  
  
The list had never been this long. She remembered them all; knew each of her men on sight, though she doubted they realized it. Knew which of them had mothers and wives and children. It was nothing more than her father had demanded, after all. She glanced over at the chessboard.  
  
Her first training to become head of Hellsing had been at that board, lectures on the realities of the war they fought first introduced within the context of the game.  
  
There was a pawn missing, she realized. Fritz. He'd grown up in Dorchester, was married to a brunette called Sandy, and had two children, eight-year-old Geoffrey and four-year-old Casey. Every piece on the board had its own name and story. "Every one of your soldiers is a person, Integra, with a home and a history," her father would say. "You must never forget that - each life entrusted to you has a web of other lives connected to it. At the same time," and he would hold up a warning finger, "they are all soldiers, risking their lives to protect the Queen and her subjects. Lives must never be squandered, but you must never hesitate to commit one if the need arises. Sacrifice your soldiers when they are needed, not a moment before - and not a moment after."  
  
Fritz, she discovered, had fallen to the floor. She rescued him, restoring him to his place on the board, and returned to her self-appointed task.  
  
"Samuel Dorsey." So many names, and most of them from a single battle. *A single massacre, is closer to the truth,* and she suddenly had to deal with dozens of new names and faces all at once. "Tyler Dysart. Kevin Elbreth." Unfamiliar men with strange accents, and most of *them* killed in the battle with Incognito. "Peter Farguson," she forced herself to write. And how to forgive herself for that? Peter, her most loyal soldier - with the sole exception, perhaps, of Walter - executed as a traitor. She was just glad his sister hadn't been watching the news and seen it. "Joseph Fisher."  
  
"Sir Integra?" She looked up. Walter hovered in the doorway. "Are you all right?"  
  
"Fine." She couldn't quite convince him that the worst part of being locked in the Tower had been boredom. He imagined that they'd kept her chained upside down to the wall or something. "It's Christmas Eve, Walter."  
  
"Yes, milady, I'm aware of - oh."  
  
"Yes. And the list is rather long this year, so I'd appreciate not being disturbed."  
  
"Of course, milady." He'd given up trying to dissuade her from "engaging in that particular brand of self-torment," as he put it, some years ago. "Do you want help?"  
  
"No, thank you."  
  
She worked slowly through the list, one name and set of memories at a time. Some of them she knew better than others, of course. The ones who infuriated her most were the group killed by the damned priest. Catholic or not, they were supposed to be on the same bloody side, which meant every life stolen by him was wasted. Squandered. Carelessness, arrogance, pandering to Alucard; a combination of all three, perhaps. And what was Seras Victoria but another life lost? Another name for the list.  
  
Integra started to write it, then stopped herself. Seras hadn't worked for her in life; she would have to go on a theoretical list of victims, and she refused to go that far. "After all, the lives lost are nothing compared to the lives *saved*." That was what she told herself so that she could sleep at night.  
  
The Queen agreed with her, regardless of what the rest of the Round Table said. She'd ferreted out the traitor, bullied Parliament and the Prime Minister until they at least pretended to agree with her, and finally placed the kiss of pardon on Integra's forehead, lips cool against her overheated flesh. Elizabeth and her stalwart support had always been a great comfort to her. She supposed, if they had been closer in age, that they might have been closer friends; these two women doing men's jobs with all their might.  
  
The pen was capped and laid beside the list, the painfully long list. Over one hundred names. It had never been so long before. "And never again," she vowed softly, folding it and placing it in an envelope. "Remember," she wrote across the front of it.  
  
She left it on her desk and went to bed. 


End file.
